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Awesome / Midway (2019)

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  • Dick Best landing his Dauntless with flaps up and engine off at the beginning, for no other reason than practice (and partly to screw with his protesting Guy in Back). He snags the "One" wire dead-on. Now consider: Landing on an aircraft carrier is one of the most difficult and dangerous things a pilot can ever do. Best stuck his landing after giving himself one of the biggest possible handicaps.
    • At the end, this becomes a Chekhov's Skill: Best does it again, but this time because he doesn't have the choice; his flaps are jammed, his plane has been shot to hell, and the engine dies on final approach. And he makes another perfect trap.
  • When Japanese level bombers attack Enterprise during her raid against the Marshall Islands, Bruno Gaido jumps into the back seat of a Dauntless parked on the flight deck, and opens fire on a crippled bomber attempting to ram the ship. His fire throws the bomber off course and the damage is limited to a glancing blow. His action is badass in of itself, and leads to his promotion to the air crew as a gunner. However what really makes this a Moment of Awesome is that this isn't Hollywood exaggeration. this actually happened.
  • Bruno's sheer defiance while being interrogated by the Japanese is definitely this. The Japanese have him at their mercy, demanding to know the name of the ship he came from, and threatening to throw him overboard if he doesn't comply. What does he do? Calmly asks for a cigarette, then tells the interrogating officer to go fuck himself. Defiant to the End would be an understatement.
  • The Battle of Midway comprising the climax of the film is one big one. The entire American and Japanese carrier fleets — combined seven fleet carriers, 600 carrier and land-based aircraft, and over 60 supporting ships from submarines to battleships — fought for control of a small coral atoll in the Pacific, and while Midway would be dwarfed by later battles such as the Battle of the Philippine Sea, it's nonetheless epic in its presentation.
    • The doomed torpedo bomber pilots pressing home their attacks in the face of murderous AAA fire and attacks by Japanese fighter patrols. Whereas Nagumo had previously spoken disparagingly over the bravery and ability of the American pilots, Yamaguchi compliments their valor.
    • The arrival of McClusky and the dive bombers after the disastrous attacks by Torpedo Squadrons Six and Eight. Just when all hope seems lost, the bombers roll into their targets, screaming down in nearly vertical dives through a hellish storm of flak and cannon fire, and in one swoop utterly obliterate three of Japan's four carriers and reduce them to burning hulks within ten minutes. For added awesome, only one bomb hit Akagi, dropped by Best, yet that was still enough to set the whole carrier on fire from stem to stern. Doubly because this was completely Truth in Television: Best's bomb punched through the flight deck to explode inside the hangar in the middle of aircraft, fuel, and munitions stacked all over the deck while rearming to strike the American carriers.
    • The final attack against Hiryu. Dick Best has already claimed one aircraft carrier that day in his attack on Akagi. Now he's leading one more charge with every pilot that could be scraped together from Yorktownnote  and Enterprise in hopes of striking the knockout blow. Exhausted and coughing out his lungs from a bad oxygen canister earlier in the day, Best presses his attack through swarms of angry Zero fighters and a ferocious barrage of AAA. He plants his bomb right smack dab in the center of the Hinomaru painted on the bow of Hiryu. The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue reveals in that moment Best became of only two pilots in history to score bomb hits against two enemy carriers in one day (the other being his Enterprise shipmate Lieutenant (j.g.) Norman J. “Dusty” Kleiss from Scouting Six, who hit Kaga in the morning attack and Hiryu in the afternoon).
  • The CGI effects all around. In contrast to the much-maligned use of modern cruisers and carriers to depict the American and Japanese fleets in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, Midway makes full use of computer effects to faithfully recreate the ships of the American and Japanese Navy at the time. Yamato sports her distinct chrysanthemum badge on her bow, and if watching closely you'll notice Hiryu and Akagi are even shown with their islands on the port (left) side.note 
  • The Awesomeness by Analysis achieved by Layton and his team, doing everything they can to give the navy the best intelligence possible. This culminates in Layton giving a prediction of when and where the Japanese fleet will be detected at Midway. When the attack comes, he's off by all of five minutes, five miles, and five degrees' bearing. That's still practically a bullseye in the enormity of the Pacific war. Nimitz is impressed.

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